


your axis on a tilt

by larkscape



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Galaxy Garrison, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, and then more hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkscape/pseuds/larkscape
Summary: For Shiro, Kerberos is a goal almost in reach. Keith can see it every time the subject comes up. Shiro brightens, focuses like a beam of sunlight through a lens, all his attention coming to bear on flight hours and training exercises andSam Holt’s leading the mission, Keith, they’ve already decided; have you met Sam yet? You’ll like him.His smile shines bright enough to light up the whole barracks complex. Keith’s not getting in the way of that. No one should. Shiro belongs in that pilot seat.Keith isn't great with feelings, his own or other people's, and he isn't great with people leaving. Unfortunately, both keep happening to him.





	your axis on a tilt

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is standalone, but it’s in the same continuity as [the dark, it called you back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432666), just in case you want to read about Adam and Shiro’s feelings on the breakup. Title from [Motorcycle Drive By](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ8wVKPUN_g).
> 
> (the working title was ‘cheer up, emo kid,’ because _dammit_ , Keith.)

 

Keith’s not going to Kerberos. Obviously. He’s still way too early in the pilot track, for one, and for two, Shiro exists.

Doesn’t stop him wishing, sometimes.

It’s only a wistful daydream for him, though. Mostly Keith just likes the idea of being that many miles away from _other people._ He greatly prefers leaving to being left, and secluding himself all the way out on one of Pluto’s moons sounds like paradise.

(That’s what getting attached means: you’re tethered, and when they leave — and they always leave, one way or another — they take a chunk out of you. If you’re very, very lucky, they might bring it back.

Luck has never wanted much to do with Keith.)

For Shiro, on the other hand, Kerberos is a goal almost in reach. Keith can see it every time the subject comes up. Shiro brightens, focuses like a beam of sunlight through a lens, all his infectious enthusiasm coming to bear on flight hours and training exercises and _Sam Holt’s leading the mission, Keith, they’ve already decided; have you met Sam yet? You’ll like him._

His smile shines bright enough to light up the whole barracks complex. Keith’s not getting in the way of that. No one should. Shiro belongs in that pilot seat.

Even if it means Shiro leaving and tearing away a piece of Keith when he does, Keith’s weirdly okay with it — because Shiro keeps giving him chances when Keith should have long since used them up, because Shiro is the first person in years, in almost ever, to _get_ him. Because after everything Shiro’s done (for the Garrison, for _Keith),_ he of all people deserves the chance to stand at the edge of the solar system and look firsthand out into true interstellar space.

God, it was dumb to let Shiro get so close. Dumb to get _attached._ Keith knows better.

But he’s okay with it this time, with all of it, because he thinks (and he has to come at the idea sideways, half-disbelieving) that he might be holding a piece of Shiro, too.

 

There’s not an application process for Kerberos, technically, because for all their academic trappings the Garrison is a military institution and these things are assigned, but Shiro has made his interest plain from the day the mission was announced, and Sam Holt wants him to pilot. That should have been all it took, in Keith’s eyes. Shiro’s got the rank and the experience, not to mention the incredible skill, and with the backing of the commander leading the excursion, he ought to have the thing in the bag.

But there’s some sort of hiccup.

 

 _A disease,_ Shiro tells him, finally, when Keith confronts him out on the tarmac. Just those words, no more explanation. Heavy and resigned. He’d never meant to tell Keith at all, had he?

Keith almost wants to be angry, but…

No. No, he doesn’t. He knows all about guarding the personal hurts, holding them in because doing so makes you feel a little less like glass.

Leave rather than be left.

“The Garrison doesn't want me up there,” Shiro says, bracing himself on the wing of the hoverbike he's working on. “Neither does Adam.”

The overheard conversation from Shiro’s office echoes in Keith’s head: Admiral Sanda’s voice saying, _This man is sick._ The words slot into place next to _electrostimulators_ and _a couple more years_ and swirl there, brewing like a storm that crashes against what Keith knows of Shiro: the way he talks about the first Jupiter mission, the goofy face he makes when Keith manages to crack a joke, the countless patient hours spent together in the flight simulators. The way he refuses to give up on anything, not even hopeless discipline case orphans named Keith.

(The fanatic dedication to his gym routine, though, suddenly makes a terrifying kind of sense. Keith doesn’t really want to think about that.)

“So… what are you going to do?”

Shiro’s expression firms into granite. “I'm going on the mission.”

Keith nods. Of course Shiro’s going. He’s the best pilot the Garrison has ever seen, and he’s got Commander Holt on his side, and he’s got reserves of determination — heels-in-the-ground stubbornness, more like — that feel achingly familiar to Keith. Disease or no ( _what kind of disease?_ he wonders, prickly with worry, and hell, he has no idea how to touch that part of this tangle, isn’t sure if Shiro even wants him to try), he knows that the brass will yield to Shiro’s unstoppable force eventually.

Shiro’s boyfriend, however, is a different sort of obstacle. Keith doesn’t really know Adam except by peripheral contact, the places where the two of them pass each other in their orbits around Shiro, but there’s a tension in the line of Shiro’s profile now that speaks of something going wrong.

“How’d Adam take that?”

Shiro turns back around, leans on the hoverbike wing, and doesn’t meet his eyes.

“It's over with him, Keith.”

Keith’s thoughts crash.

“He walked out,” Shiro says in that flat, matter-of-fact way that means he’s trapping all his emotions under a glass, like a spider he doesn’t want to kill but doesn’t want to deal with, either.

“What do you mean, it's over? You broke up?”

“He said that it's him or the mission, basically.”

“Why? Because of…”

Shiro says nothing, but his jaw tightens, and his left hand twists around the electrostimulator bracelet on his right wrist again.

“…And you're going on the mission,” Keith says, quiet. “God, _Shiro._ Are you okay? You two have been together forever.”

“Almost five years,” Shiro says to his own hands, barely audible. Then he looks up. “I'm— fine, Keith. I'm fine.” He laughs once and it sounds hollow, stuck in his chest. “Kerberos, right? It's a dream come true, and I'm going to fight for it, no matter what Admiral Sanda says. My last chance, I think. I'm going to— I'm—” His voice buckles, almost breaks as he says, “Five years and he—” and then he fights it down, the strain visible in his shoulders. Back under the glass.

Inside of Keith, something rears up in furious challenge. He wants to curl around Shiro like a blackberry bramble, shielding him inside a nest of thorns that keeps all the Adams of the world far, far away.

“I'm sorry,” Shiro says. “I shouldn’t be dumping this on you.”

“Shiro. Hey. I'm the one who asked.” It’s the best Keith’s got. He doesn’t know how to reach out the way Shiro does; Keith’s skill set lies more in pushing people away than making them open up to him, and under any other circumstances he’s glad for that. Witness his daydreams of escaping to Kerberos.

But Shiro’s different. Always has been, ever since that very first day when Keith stole his car and Shiro just came back for more. Keith would take Shiro _with_ him.

(Tethered. Dumb. He _damn well knows better._ But Keith's never had much sense of self-preservation, either, not for this.)

When Shiro keeps his gaze turned away for too long, Keith tries a different tack. Maybe a distraction will do the trick. “How close are you to finishing here? Do you want to take the bikes out to the canyon?”

At least it gets Shiro to look at him. Still too controlled, tight as a clenched fist, but looking.

“...I was just adjusting the idle calibration. It's basically done.” An expression that might have once exchanged names with a smile crosses Shiro’s face. “Give me ten minutes to close everything up again and we can go.”

“I’ll get my bike ready.”

 

Wind in his hair, dust churned up by the engines under him, throttle held wide open — Shiro soars over the hard ground like a falcon on the hunt, elegant in his precision and focus. Keith can see the stress crumble and blow away from him the further they get from the squat, boxy shapes of the Garrison complex.

The further they get from Iverson and Sanda. From Adam. From this whole clusterfuck of a morning.

By the time they reach the canyon, the curve of Shiro’s back has smoothed out, and he’s stretched low over the handlebars when he shoots a smirk back at Keith and guns it.

Keith grins. There’s a reason it’s called _joy_ riding, after all.

When they’re flying, words are superfluous. They communicate in the inborn language of pilots, of racers, the slightest dip of a wing to signal a sudden turn, revving their engines in challenge, trading the lead position down the canyon path as the speed tries to rip their breath away. They’re neck and neck when they reach the cliff, and Shiro whoops as they both soar free into the clear air.

Keith is grinning the whole way down. This moment is the only thing that matters: the hot afternoon sun, the dry wind, the weightless lift in his gut, the parabolic arc they trace as the earth rises to meet them. Shiro smiling again.

These days, Keith can feel the timing in his bones, and he twists the throttle mere feet above the ground and shoots off toward the horizon with Shiro right beside him. After a quick glance over and a challenging grin, Keith cuts wide to trace sidewinding snake paths in the dirt, tipping the bike side to side like he’s navigating an obstacle course; Shiro shoots past him and doubles back to the start, drawing an opposing waveform to make a double helix in dust.

They skim over the dry ground and chase the sun, and in the flow of the ride, Keith can let the idea of _disease,_ of _peak condition for only a couple more years_ settle into the back of his mind without the knee-jerk denial that makes it impossible to process.

 _My last chance,_ Shiro had said.

Keith would do anything to give that to Shiro, to personally send him off to the stars they both long for. To watch as Shiro achieves his dreams — because he’s going to, and screw the admiralty (and biology, and Garrison politics, and _disease_ ) anyway. Keith knows it down to his marrow, as sure and steadfast as gravity. Adam didn’t feel this? Adam tried to stand in Shiro’s way? Then Adam didn’t deserve him. Keith aches with the need to repay even a tiny portion of what Shiro’s given him, the faith, the unwavering support. Shiro deserves it. Keith’s never known anyone like him. Shiro has wormed his way in all unknowing, has his claws hooked deep into Keith’s being, and somehow Keith doesn’t even mind.

He's going to get ripped to pieces again, but this time might just be worth it.

 

They fly for most of an hour. Soon enough, though, Shiro starts looking tense again, his steering less fluid, his shoulders creeping up. Not even racing is enough to distract him for long.

(But what if… He’d said the bracelet kept his muscles loose; is it…? No, Shiro has been living with whatever’s going on with him for a long time, and the way he shut it down earlier made it clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Keith understands that part. He hates it when people assume everything about him, everything _wrong_ with him, is due to his orphan status, when the truth is that he’s just kind of a jerk sometimes. Too smart for his own good but not smart enough for it to actually make a difference, much better with vehicles than with people. He’s not going to do that to Shiro. He’s not going to reduce him to his disease, whatever it may be.)

God, this is all Adam’s fault. Keith hates the guy even more just for putting Keith in this position; he needs to help Shiro somehow but he has no clue what might work.

_Just be supportive. It’s what Shiro would do for you._

The question is how. Keith’s not good at this part. If it were him, he’d be off on his own, earning a black eye in a parking lot somewhere and giving just as good as he gets, or pushing a hotwired hoverbike into the red and taunting the cops as he roars by, or— but Shiro isn’t him.

He catches Shiro’s eye and nods toward the mouth of the canyon, and Shiro banks around.

 

“He put in a flight partner change request,” Shiro says when they’re leaning side by side against the hoverbikes in the shade of the cliff.  He’s staring at some distant spot down past their feet. “Adam. Irreconcilable differences, he said.”

“That’s…” Keith isn't sure what to say; Shiro’s voice is even, but Keith can sense the pain underneath and he doesn’t know how to help. He tilts a little, bumps his shoulder into Shiro’s arm, and the gesture seems woefully lacking. “I’m sorry, Shiro.”

Shiro’s face crumples.

It’s a startling sight; Shiro’s normally so controlled, and Keith feels like he’s witnessing something visceral and private, not meant for him. A baring of wounds. It’s too raw. Keith’s no doctor, no surgeon; he can’t even offer so much as a bandaid. Something in his chest throbs when Shiro speaks.

“I love him, Keith. I can’t be with him anymore; I don’t— when I let myself think about it, I don’t _want_ to be with him anymore. Not after this. But I still love him.”

“I know.” Yeah, Keith’s always known. Shiro-and-Adam: a mathematical constant for as long as Keith’s been at the Garrison.

But no more.

“I can’t believe he’d make me choose like that. Things have been… rocky lately, between us, but I didn’t think he was that upset. I thought… I don't know what I thought.”

“His loss,” Keith says firmly. Who could walk away from Shiro? The very idea is unfathomable. “And if he was holding you back, then you’re better off without him, anyway. You’ve been dreaming about the Kerberos mission for years. Did he really think you would just give it up?”

“…I don’t know. It feels like he became a stranger when I wasn’t looking.” Shiro laughs without humor. “Huh, I guess that's the problem, isn't it? I stopped looking.”

“You’re—” Keith cuts off with a frustrated noise. “Stop blaming yourself. You’re allowed to be mad at him.”

“I'm not mad, though.” Shiro looks away again. “He had his reasons. Most of them were good ones. I know that I'm not… that he hasn’t had it easy.”

Trust Shiro to make excuses for the man who just left him. He's too kind-hearted. People are cruel, callous, people disappoint and betray and _leave_ all the time, but Shiro seems to believe that everyone is genuine like him when he’s clearly an anomaly. The only anomaly Keith’s ever found.

“Well,” Keith mutters, surly, “is it okay if _I'm_ mad?”

That earns him a weak chuckle. “Sure, Keith. Don't think I could stop you anyway.”

“He hurt you.”

Shiro sighs. “Yeah. He did. I hurt him, too.”

He sounds so defeated. Keith’s own anger is irrelevant in the face of Shiro’s pain. He leans in and presses their arms together again. He may not have the right words, but he can offer support this way, can offer his own meager shoulder, narrow as it is, and hope it's enough to prop Shiro up.

Shiro leans heavily on him, and his dark head comes down, and then his breath catches just a little and Keith's heart seizes up in his chest.

“Shiro…”

“Sorry,” Shiro says, shrinking into himself. “Sorry, I just— I'll be fine.” It feels to Keith like he’s trying to retreat, but the way he’s slumped over means he curls tighter into Keith’s shoulder, and that part at least is exactly right even when everything else is wrong.

Keith tentatively curves one arm around his back — is this okay? Is Shiro going to pull away? What does he need? Keith’s flying blind — but Shiro offers no resistance to the contact, so Keith gathers him close and guards their silence while Shiro pulls himself back under control.

It takes a while. For once, Keith doesn’t mind the waiting.

 

That’s the moment that flashes through Keith’s mind a year later, when Adam comes up to him in the hall on the morning after the news broke about Kerberos (pilot error? Bullshit. Shiro knows his own limits better than anyone, and he doesn’t take chances with the lives of his crew; the Garrison’s hiding something) and murmurs, “I just wanted him _safe_ ,” in this broken voice and Keith has to bite back the urge to fucking deck him.

 _Think of Shiro._ Think of Shiro crumpled into Keith’s side, leaning against a hoverbike in the desert and fighting to steady his breathing while making apologies for someone who doesn’t deserve them. Letting Keith in, letting Keith hold the raw parts of him in place while he stitched himself back together around the hole Adam left.

Shiro is (was? _Is,_ damn it) a better person than Keith could ever hope to be. He wouldn’t want Keith to punch his ex right in the stupid, pompous mouth.

Keith hates Adam so much. Hates him for— for _everything,_ irrational and fiery. Hates him for the loss of the Kerberos crew, hates him for the other cadets’ stares, hates him for the way Iverson keeps singling Keith out as a _bad example, let this be a lesson to you cadets._

He hates Iverson, too. He almost even hates Shiro, though he’s self-aware enough to know _that,_ at least, is misplaced grief.

 

Keith reminds himself, again and again: Don’t think about Shiro lost out at the very edge of known space. Don’t think about the new, stronger electrostimulator bracelet, like a timer ticking down. Don’t think about the transparent lie of _pilot error._

The reminders don’t work. He keeps thinking about it.

Then he punches out Iverson.

 

At the Kerberos launch, Keith had stood just outside the barricade and watched the engines light up, watched Shiro and the Holts climbing through the sky on their way to the edge of the solar system and into the history books.

Standing there, Keith had remembered a stolen car, and an outstretched hand, and a double helix in the dust. Locked his knees as something clenched in his throat.

He’d felt too exposed, foolish just for thinking it, but...

_Shiro, you’re taking a part of me with you up there. Whether you know it or not._

And for the first time, the loss had been almost… _good._ It meant that Keith would be with Shiro, on some abstract level.

Trust like that doesn’t come easily to Keith. Doesn’t really come at all anymore; he’s been cut open too many times, cored out like an apple. But he trusts Shiro.

Shiro is (is, is, _is_ ), as always, an anomaly.

Now, chased out of the Garrison in a storm of sternly-worded official documents and _disciplinary action_ and Iverson’s ruined eye, Keith stands out behind the shack in the black desert night and cross-checks a stolen pair of the Garrison’s binoculars against the ancient ClairSky 9680 telescope he’d found, hunting down Pluto and her moons. Staring at the faint light of the dwarf planet the lenses can barely detect and longing for the impossible.

Because Keith’s stuck here on Earth and full up with this feeling, these memories of Shiro’s voice ( _you’re learning,_ fond and warm in the desert sunset; and _sometimes we all need a hand,_ frighteningly open, the first time Keith let someone tether him in so long; and _I’ll be fine,_ raw, trying so hard not to show it, leaning heavily on Keith’s shoulder), and the anger is real and boiling like a geyser building up — but underneath it, and under the deeper hurt Keith refuses to even acknowledge, there’s a part of him still thinking that, for once in his life, the tether goes both ways.

He knows, deep down, that Shiro didn’t mean to leave him like this, didn’t intend to rip away a piece of him and throw it into the vacuum (and understanding that is _progress_ for him; Shiro would be proud), but all the same, he can’t stop himself from drawing up the memory of that moment at the launch, feeling foolish and heartsick, and thinking,

_You were supposed to come back. What good is getting attached if it doesn’t bring you back?_

 

Later, a long, long time later when he’s finally beginning to feel a little less raw, Keith starts thinking, _Well, if you’re not going to come back on your own, then I’m just going to have to go_ get _you, aren’t I? The Garrison sure isn’t going to do it._

(It takes a mysterious pull into the desert, and a cave full of carvings, and a crash landing, and three weird cadets, and pissing off Iverson even more, but eventually, he does.) 

 


End file.
